


nonetheless, you have created me, and i am your villain

by nahmooste



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Headcanon, barely mention the characters apart from ardyn, barely mention the chocobros, i hate the astrals, i literally had to stop halfway through writing this because it was making me sad, more of an angsty af short fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-17
Updated: 2017-06-17
Packaged: 2018-11-15 07:53:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11226588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nahmooste/pseuds/nahmooste
Summary: Ardyn waits for Noctis to return. Things are the same, but different. All he craves is peace. All he knows is that he can't have it.





	nonetheless, you have created me, and i am your villain

He stares with a certain bitterness clouding his features. The world— horrid and destroyed by his hands, sour and falling apart at the seams for far longer than anyone had imagined— is shrouded in darkness. All of it, all the skies and all the light, all the power… all of it drained away into the kind of black that filled his soul.

 

But, as Ardyn sits lonely on the steps to the throne, he lets himself be surprised that the Astral’s still have hope enough to bother him with it.

 

For, in front of him, he could see her face.

 

Pale and beautiful, white gold hair a halo around her face, sapphire eyes staring right at him.

 

_There is still good in you…_

 

“There is no good in me.”

 

_There is still hope for you…_

 

“There is no hope for me.”

 

Sitting with his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together, Ardyn drops his eyes from the vision of light in front of him. He’s scarred and dirtied, ugly traces of inky blood on his skin. He fulfils their prophecy on his terms, those of trial and error, those of foul play and mimicry.

 

But there is enough self-loathing in his body that even the Astrals collapse away from him in pity.

 

_Choose to fight it—_

 

“I can’t.”

 

_Ardyn, please!_

 

“I won’t.”

 

His voice fills the empty space around him. He hasn’t spoken for three years; not since the last person in Insomnia fell to the scourge. It scratches the back of his throat, burns when he speaks, and the pain… it soothes him. Pulls him back down into his body.

 

He scoffs at the image in front of him. “You are not real. You are the Astrals, who cannot control the monster they have created, who cannot undo what has been done. They are the Gods, but they are the wrong kind.”

 

_If you fight it… the darkness inside of you… your suffering will end._

 

“I…” Ardyn shakes his head in— in confusion, in anger, and his voice raises. “I have _tried_ to fight it! And I have _failed!_ I killed _thousands_ trying to fight myself and not _one_ of _your_ Astrals even bothered to help me! I am their creation, their _son,_ and they have _abandoned_ me!”

 

_You abandoned them! You turned your back on the only beings who ever had faith in you!_

 

“I was given no choice…” he stops himself short and lowers his head once more. “I was given no chance.”

 

_You have had two thousand years of choices._

 

His eyes flicker to the scars on his wrist. Paler than the rest of his body, tiny little lines that draw down his skin towards his shoulder. Scars upon scars of inflicted damage, of filth that crawled into his bones and made a home of his veins. Of his brain.

 

Lunafreya disappears from in front of him, and the only sign that she is gone is the lack of warmth that had been emanating from her image.

 

He sits in silence once more, amber eyes gazing back out into the blackened Insomnia.

 

And despite the ice already in his body, Ardyn freezes completely. It is not the Astral wearing Gentiana, of that he is sure, because what reaches out to him isn’t frost— it is laughter. Childish laughter, the kind from a memory he’d forgotten long ago.

 

“Oh, how you torture me,” Ardyn croaks, his voice drawn. “Those memories of which I do not deserve have been long forgotten, and yet you bring them back to me for— what? Cruel irony? A lesson?” He shakes his head. “I have learnt all of your lessons, Bahamut, and I am no longer your student. I am stronger than you… I am stronger than myself.”

 

The childish laughter comes again, followed by the sound of quick footsteps from behind him. He doesn’t bother to look behind him. Ardyn knows exactly what this is.

 

_Daddy!_

 

A weight lunches into his back and he rocks forward with the momentum, arms knocked off his knees. Dread fills his entire being.

 

_Daddy, I missed you so much!_

 

There are tiny hands grasping at his shoulders. They crunch the material of his jacket, pawing at him, and Ardyn doesn’t have enough sanity left in him to turn around and acknowledge— acknowledge his child.

 

But he has enough sanity left to speak. He’ll always have enough sanity left in him to speak.

 

“Makabe,” he whispers, and on it’s on volition, one of his hands reaches up to caress the smaller one peeking over his shoulder. “How I have missed you, my son…”

 

_Me and mommy are waiting for you… please come find us! We’ve been waiting so long._

 

Ardyn feels his immortal heart sink even deeper into itself. “And I have waited two millennia to return to you… what is a few years more?”

 

The Astrals had warned him. Two millennia ago, when he sacrificed himself to them— the Astrals had warned him of the consequences. He may never know peace. He may never die, of which is a curse in itself. He may never bear another child. He may never be regarded as the hero he wished to be. But he was King. And, in front of his people, he’d pledged to protect them all. In front of his son… in front of his wife.

 

They had warned him. And Ardyn didn’t _listen_ , or even realise the gravity of his choice.

 

But he knew now.

 

And, even after all their attempts… the Astrals could not redeem him. He had forced his way into the Crystal with the Starscourge writhing between his cells only to be pulled apart by every fibre of his being.

 

The Astrals, out of fear, had refused their creation.

 

When Bahamut put him back together… Ardyn _was_ the Scourge. “If you needed a villain for your story, great Draconian… I will be your villain. All you had to do was ask.”

 

His son steps in front of him. Ardyn, overrun with emotion he hasn’t felt in decades, forgets for a moment that this is not his son— forgets for a moment that this is just an image sent to him from the Astrals. He gazes slowly at the boy, regards him with love and adoration, and for a second, the shattered soul inside of his body mends itself. He reaches forward to caress the young child’s face. Smooth and untouched, Makabe feels like _peace_. And his eyes… blue, just like— No. Nothing like.

 

Ardyn pushes himself away from the child so quick he almost stumbles.

 

And then, manically, frantically, he’s yelling into the void space around him. “ _You_ created this! _ALL OF YOU!_ Do not forget that I am capable of destroying the very plain you exist on and if my peace didn’t depend on your shepherding… I would strangle you with my own two hands. Do not forget, Astrals... the Scourge was my reckoning, but by the  _Gods_ am I yours.”

 

For the next three days, Ardyn sits on the King’s throne. To remind himself, of course, that he’s done this, _all of it_ , to create a Chosen King strong enough to kill him, and vengeful enough to do it properly.

 

It is only when he ponders on the current King of Lucis that the sky flashes boldly, and Ardyn knows.

 

Noctis Izunia is awake.

 

—

 

Noctis walks through the empty streets of Insomnia— except, he too, does not look sound of mind. He turns all around himself, smiling and talking, acting as if he has friends around him, people surrounding his body. Acting as if… as if his three companions are not dead.

 

Ardyn’s face remains unchanged.

 

He plays his role perfectly. The villain, the Usurper. The hated. Broken Messiah; filth.

 

“You walk alone, _Noct_ ,” Ardyn drawls, “your friends are gone, just like your city, and just like your father… tell me… did the Crystal give you everything you were looking for?”

 

And, like a child, Noctis reacts accordingly, brandishing his Armiger and flinging it, and himself, at warp speed in just seconds. The weapon buries it's head into the wall where Ardyn’s head had been, and the blade is angled against his neck. Noctis seethes across from him, teeth bared, chest heaving.

 

“You took _everyone_ from me!”

 

“And they took everything from me,” Ardyn hisses through his teeth, pressing forward into the blade. Black ink trickles from broken skin. “Now— now we _die together_.”

 

“You waited ten years… ten years for me to pierce your chest with this blade. And for what? For _death?_ ”

 

Ardyn smiles at him. “For _peace_ ,” he declares, almost as if he’s already won, almost as if he’s ready to die.

 

He is.


End file.
